She does look. She does see the fast food bags and the empty cigarette packs and the amp and she thinks nothing of it. Empty van with music equipment in it. Big fucking deal.
This may be how those people may of with their people. But Dan and Sera seem safe if not good. So Alicia gives the inside a glance before she commits to climbing into the passenger seat but she does climb into the passenger seat.
Seatbelt.
And the van smells like pot.
"Do you guys live out here," the Orphan asks, "or...?"
SerafíneDan glances in the rearview. This brush of his gaze touches on Sera in the backseat, then slides to Alicia. Briefly; for the most part he doesn't take his eyes off the roar ahead of them. And the guy - covered in tattoos - who seems the more responsible of the pair. Sober enough to drive, at least - the guy does not answer Alicia at first because he is waiting, see, gauging the moment to see whether Sera will answer and how she will answer and she is mostly humming beneath her skin and not-answering and so Dan answers,
"We live in Denver, mostly. We're renting a cabin up here, though. You live in the city, huh?"
AliciaOf the two of them Dan is the more coherent. He can walk into a store and broker paper currency for groceries and speak to an apprentice about where she's going and where the train station is and maybe he even notices that the girl is tense and untrusting even in this. This ride to the station from the middle of nowhere where the Christian dropped her.
They live in Denver mostly. She lives in the city huh?
"I mean..." She's already decided grieving in private won't do anything but how open can she be with people she just met. "For now, I do. I... yeah. I live in the city."
Less than two miles and they'll be at the station. The girl does not hum but an observer could see the anxiety beneath her skin.
SerafíneAwarempathy. Can Sera feel that?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1
AliciaAlright Cultist. She's not fine.
She's scared. She's not confused but she doesn't trust what she knows which is just as good as confused and beyond that she thinks you might sell her out. Hence the reticence and the noncommittal answers. Plenty to fear and nothing to trust.
She needs to trust someone. You might be the one to trust but this girl sure as shit isn't going to be the one to call that ball.
Serafíne"We've got a place in Cap Hill; share it with a couple more housemates," Dan says, making what passes for small talk with the skittish girl, papering over her fear and anxiety pretty easily. Reaches down and turns on the stereo and it's the Pixies, Gigantic, Kim Deal going on about a big big love. The road spins by. They'll be coming into Golden soon. " - you go to DU? Or, still at home with your folks?"
Because she's so young.
And while Dan chats with Alicia, easily, though somewhat meaninglessly, Sera has managed to curl up in the middle seat without removing her seat belt, which is a rather limber feat assisted perhaps by her altered state of consciousness, and she has tipped her head slantward against the cool solidity of the window and feels the countryside moving past and has her eyes half-closed and is half-watching Alicia and half-listening to Dan and inhaling and feeling and feeling -
--
A moment of arrest.
Sera exhales, see. Breathing in out a long, slow breath, and breathing in again, while the countryside moves past, the trees in their strange rows, all a-marching, and the tangled skeins of her senses and the seconds between her teeth like matchsticks.
Oh. That fear.
Where have you been, little girl?
Time 2: Divination. Difficulty 5. -2 (merit)
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 4, 9) ( success x 3 )
AliciaHere's the thing.
Let's call it two weeks ago. Maybe three. This girl was with her father. That's all well and good young as she is but Sera with her bright and second sight can see beyond that. Isn't just that she was with her father and now she's not.
A montage then.
Two people arguing. One of them an underweight woman of Chinese and English descent. The other a tall man of Arabic and Irish descent. Alright. Arguing. That's all a young girl can tell but they're arguing with such vehemence. How can they love each other if they argue so fierce.
Ignore that. Where has she been.
The girl knows motel rooms. Loves them. Loves the freedom and the anonymity of a fresh key card. Likes the sight of the place at four in the morning when everyone is asleep and she's fresh out the 7-Eleven with a pack of cigarettes walking back and she knows exactly which one her crazy fucking father is in.
Let's be honest. Alicia thinks her father was fucking nuts. He took her from city to city oh meet Ron or here's June or I've told you about Mike and all she could do was put on a smile and shake their hand and laugh at their dumb jokes. Breathe a bit heavy as she talks to strangers now.
"My mom works for the CDC," she says. "She's in Tanzania now. My dad is probably dead." If she says it enough it will stop tearing at her. "But I don't know. All I can do is hope. He made it sound..."
What could she possibly tell these two to make them understand. She doesn't even try. She points.
"Next left. That's the train station."
SerafíneNext left. That's the train station.
Dan gives Alicia a sharp glance at he turns. Something about her manner. The mom in the CDC, the dad who is probably dead and if she says it enough times it will stop opening her up and he just follows her direction. Takes the next left, pilots the van forward because you know he's not a goddamned kidnapper turns on the blinker to pull into the parking lot, waiting while a Lexus SUV ahead of him allows a couple with a jogging stroller to cross the parking lot entrance and he has a moment or several within which to make a decision and he glances up at the rearview and he sees Sera there, and Sera is sitting upright(ish) now too. Leaning forward -
"No idea how long it'll be 'til the next train. There's room for another if you wanna crash and grab the early train in the morning. Beats waiting around for who knows how long."
That's what he says, as Sera - who warps the goddamned world - touches Alicia lightly on the left shoulder and says,
"I don't know who you're running from, but we're not gonna turn you in.
"To anyone."
Such goddamned conviction in her voice.
SerafíneCharisma + Expression
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1
SerafíneCULTISTS DO NOT FAIL.
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
AliciaAlicia is skittish but not this skittish. She likes to be touched. By strangers not so much but Sera has skinny meatless hands. Not much damage to be done there. The girl lets the older woman lean forward and touch her hand to her shoulder and she can't feel the tugging on the Tapestry or the warping of the fabric of reality as the doped-up girl reads her history.
And it is a history. But Sera can only read so much. Can read everything. The relevance of her reading boils down to this: the girl loves her mother. She loved her father. She cannot tell her mother what happened to her father. Her father made the conditions of her mother's freedom very clear. Her father has been kidnapped by the Technocracy. Is he crazy? He may be crazy. That doesn't change the fact she loves him and wants him to be okay. That he isn't okay and she knows it.
They're coming up on the train station and she's biting her thumbnail.
They're not gonna turn her in. Alicia laughs an unhappy laugh. To anyone.
"Okay," Alicia says. Her voice a stretched keen. Fuck. "Thank you."
She could cry any second now. Young girl with no support. All it takes is a kindness and Sera in her inebriation has already set upon her. Still.
SerafíneThe engine idles. They wait. Dan doesn't know whether that Okay, thanks means okay, thanks for not turning me in, or okay, thanks for the place to stay and he is aware of the starched sound to her voice and aware of Sera in the back, the State of Her, and also the way she Sees, and there's only so much for Sera to say now, too. Only so much she can say, so they just sit there in the van long enough to be sure that Alicia has the chance to slip out on her own, under her own power, here and now. The fucking locks are manual, for god's sake.
Everything is in her control.
Either way, Dan puts the van back into gear when he has judged that a long enough time has passed. Eases it into traffic and starts heading back the way he came, down the two-lane road, the opposite direction from civilization. Climbing and climbing through the front range, taking turn after turn after turn along a well-remembered route up to a one-bedroom cabin in the woods whose single bedroom neither Serafíne nor Dan have disturbed.
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